While the comment’s “you” is me and my claim to prophecy was indeed tongue-in-cheek (and perceived as such by the commenter), I could not get past the fact that many people do claim (seriously and stridently) to speak for God. Many of those who are serious and strident are also willing to coerce people they cannot convince. Many of those who are willing to coerce are also willing to kill people they cannot coerce.

While I cannot just keep it tongue-in-cheek, I still see the wisdom in Oscar Wilde’s remark that life is too important to be taken seriously. So I will continue semiseriously.

Sometimes it is hard to distinguish literature from either literal truth or bogus claims to tell it. Now I will tweak the font as a gentle reminder that the rest of this post is just lit.

Management consultants are often hired by executives who want an outsider with “MBA” after their name to bless what they have already decided to do. While God could bless well enough on His own, He did want advice from a management consultant on how to get out of a procedural rut.

Aware that the complexity of the Real World (and how to thrive in it) was beyond immediate comprehension, He had endowed some otherwise unremarkable creatures with abilities to observe and learn; to imagine and reason; to build bridges and write poems. He had tried repeatedly to nudge them in good directions by inspiring a few of them, with a little success and a lot of failure.

As He told the consultant:

I keep it simple and age-appropriate, but they oversimplify half of what I tell them and obfuscate the rest. The Golden Rule gets thru as something to proclaim but not as something to practice. Absurdly much of what they think has been revealed to them is just their own bigotry and bullshit.

The consultant read over the case histories and concluded that there was a personnel issue:

U tend to inspire people who mean well but score high on credulity and low on humor. Maybe it would help to go outside the box. How about inspiring a nerdy atheist who digs sacred music and pushes the envelope of haiku poetry?

God balked at the suggestion:

Does anybody like that exist?

The consultant smiled the enigmatic Mona Lisa smile that sometimes appeared when he was moonlighting as a Zen master. He leaned forward and spoke softly:

For me at least, a major consolation for the decreased mobility that comes with age is an increased appreciation of mundane miracles close to home. One example is considered here; I hope to post a few more in coming months.

Long ago, I drove/flew/drove to a motel in the town on the western edge of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Soon afterwards, I hiked into the park, admired an alpine lake, ate a trail lunch, and hiked out in a thunderstorm that mocked my “waterproof” boots. Nothing epic, but well beyond me now. That’s OK. I did it once (which was more than enough for the thunderstorm part).

Some people consider it a miracle when the government does something right. Over the years since that trip to Colorado, the EPA adopted (and enforced!) vehicle emissions standards. I can walk the roads near my house w/o being assaulted by trucks and school buses belching black diesel crud. Their exhaust is still smelly and unhealthy, but not bad enough to ruin a walk on a breezy day. So I can often walk about 1.5 miles to the far end of an artificial pond beside the road. An artificial pond ringed by hilly pasture land is not the same as a natural lake ringed by mountains, but water is water and blue sky is blue sky.

After a few rainy days, excess water in the pond rushes thru a culvert under the road and into the little brook that was dammed to create the pond. I can admire the exuberant splashing on the rocks in the brook w/o dwelling on the artificiality of the scene.

Sound of Sunlight

Rushing waters bring
joy to those who hear them sing
and see them sparkle.